Anne of Green Gables – Episode 8

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Hello everyone, and welcome to Wrong Every Time. Today I’ve got all sorts of anxieties plaguing me, and thus have decided the perfect thing to clear my mind is a visit to Green Gables. When last we stopped by, Anne had just celebrated her adoption into the family by declaring war on the neighbors, affronting Rachel Lynde with such venomous barbs as “how would you like it if someone called you red-haired and freckled!?” Lynde was deeply scandalized by this display, but fortunately, Anne is as good at melodramatic apologies as she is at cutting insults, and thus peace was eventually restored.

When all was said and done, the ultimate result of Anne’s misadventure was actually a deepening of her bond with Marilla. Anne’s reluctant caretaker is at last beginning to feel a sort of motherly affection for her charge, and you just know that Anne’s going to be testing that bond with relish. Let’s see what nonsense she gets up to this time, as we return to the blooming hills of Green Gables!

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Hugtto! Precure – Episode 30

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Hello everyone, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to announce we’re returning to Hugtto! Precure, a show that most recently tore my heart to pieces with the introduction of Hana’s grandmother. Last episode’s reflection on the cruelty of time, and how we can age out of the things that define us, was an unexpected but very welcome compliment to Huggto’s usual optimism. There was no great victory Hana could achieve to dispel last episode’s worries, no villain to defeat in order to restore her grandmother’s youth; aging is just tough, and I always appreciate when a children’s show handles such difficult aspects of life with both sensitivity and frankness. We cannot hope to stop the clock or turn back time; all we can hope for is to age with grace, and not miss out on future happiness by lamenting the things we’ve lost.

Episodes like that demonstrate the emotive potential of great children’s media, stories that trust their audiences can handle complex and difficult topics. Most children are not foreigners to loss, and can appreciate media that acknowledges and helps contextualize the hard moments in their lives. That said, I’m also a big fan of Hugtto’s goofier content, and I’m guessing an episode that heavy demands an extremely silly followup. Let’s see what we’ve got!

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Star Driver – Episode 4

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to get back to Star Driver, where we most recently watched Kanako attempt to defeat Takuto with the power of horny, and then send her servant Takashi into battle with him. That battle’s outcome will likely damage Kanako’s standing within the Order, but interestingly, Takashi himself didn’t seem bothered. In fact, judging by his final conversation with the Order’s president, Takashi doesn’t even need a bier to activate his robot – he has an emblem of his own, and can graduate to his “second phase” with the same ease as Takuto.

All that plot and mystery stuff is well and good, but you know me; I’m more interested in Star Driver’s thematic and psychological content, and much of that remains obscure. Kanako’s entire personality seems to undermine any possibility of the Order being defined by its conservatism; in fact, between her and Benio’s behavior, the Order seems more willing to embrace thoughtless or transactional sexual agency than their opponents. And yet, their rituals are steeped in the language of traditional gender roles, speaking often of “caged birds” and shrine maidens as symbols of purity. I’d love to dig into their philosophy further, but in the immediate sense, I’m mostly hoping for more texture and history from our hero Takuto. Either way, I’m sure Star Driver will find new ways to delight and impress, so let’s dive right into the fourth episode!

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Spring 2022 – Week 9 in Review

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Hello everyone, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. You all doing okay? I’m frankly feeling a bit lethargic at the moment, but fortunately, my current tasks are largely mechanical ones. Just gotta write this here opening paragraph, find some screencaps for the week’s features, and plug it all into the CMS – perfect lazy afternoon work, after which I’ll be clearing my head with a nice jog. My own micro-moods aside, we’ve got quite an interesting collection of films this week, ranging from another Hitchcock classic to the original Top Gun. I can’t imagine I’ll be adding anything to the Top Gun discourse that hasn’t been rehashed a thousand times already, but I’d be a terrible reviewer if I let my intellectual redundancy stop me from opening my big fat mouth. Let’s start off with a tragic misfire from one of my favorite directors, as we burn through a fresh Week in Review!

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Sherlock Hound – Episode 1

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I thought we’d do some exploring of another classic anime production, as we check out the first episode of Sherlock Hound. From what I understand, the show is acclaimed as one of the highlights of TMS Entertainment’s early years, combining the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with a light steampunk garnish borrowed from the works of Jules Verne. Given this particular blend of aesthetics, as well as the fact that he’d just finished directing his first film Castle of Cagliostro at the studio, it should come as little surprise that Hayao Miyazaki directed some of this show – unfortunately, rights issues stymied the production, and so he was ultimately only in charge of six episodes.

We won’t be hitting the Miyazaki material until episode three, but I’m nonetheless eager to see how this production tackles the material. I read a great number of the Sherlock Holmes stories as a teenager, and warmly remember Holmes himself as an eminently unlikable magician with a nasty opium habit. I can’t imagine those qualities will translate to his family-friendly animated identity, so let’s see precisely what sort of Holmes we’re dealing with, as we check out the first episode of Sherlock Hound!

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Bodacious Space Pirates – Episode 18

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today the sun is shining, the birds are trilling, and Marika is instigating another pan-galactic political incident. Having apparently not contented herself meddling in the affairs of Serenity’s royal succession, she has now gone and instigated an interstellar trade war, by “kidnapping” the heir of the Hugh and Dolittle Interstellar Transportation empire. Meanwhile, her actual pirate crew are still recuperating from a bout of space pneumonia, meaning her ship is being staffed by a bunch of teenagers.

All of this would be cause for panic for any conventional high schooler, but Marika has proven she is far more than that. Marika is confident yet largely without ego, quick to learn, and blessed with just the right dosage of piratey madness. With Chiaki, Jenny, and Lynn at her side, she’s got a team that would be the envy of many a pirate crew, age notwithstanding. Having cut their teeth on a conventional piracy appointment, I’m eager to see Marika’s Irregulars handle something just a tad more ambitious. Let’s get back to the battle!

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The Legend of Vox Machina – Episode 4

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be returning to the Legend of Vox Machina, for a very simple reason: I’m having a great fucking time. My own apartment’s progress through our D&D campaign has slowed to a crawl, leaving me profoundly malnourished and desperate for some gamified high fantasy drama. I have quibbles about Vox Machina here and there, but the show’s enduring strength is that it damn well captures the feeling of a tabletop adventure, striking a difficult balance of earnest fantasy and gamified mechanical design.

So far, it’s actually been better at capturing the feeling of D&D than illustrating a narrative of its own, but I expect that to change as we move beyond the tutorial phase. The introduction of the Briarwoods has given our team a personal stake in the drama, so I’ll be interested to see how the show manages its earnest drama versus its verging-on-out-of-character quipping going forward. Either way, I’m sure there’ll be plenty to talk about, so let’s get right to the action!

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Spring 2022 – Week 8 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to my small slice of the internet. Summer arrived in force this week, heralding ninety degree afternoons and a whole lot of general dampness. I’m not complaining, though; I’ll take oppressive heat over oppressive cold any day, and will be enjoying my newly walkable city until the next eight-month winter arrives. Boston is actually quite nice in the summer; we’ve got a wide array of public parks, Cambridge is essentially an urban college town, and we’re positively lousy with colonial architecture and monuments. I am in fact convincing myself to go for a walk as I type, so let’s wrap up this aimless preamble, and get to the real meat of the article. A new week has passed, some excellent films have been screened, and I’m eager to share my findings with you. Let’s get to it!

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86 – Episode 11

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Well, I guess we’re doing this, huh? After storming through 86’s ninth and tenth episodes in a flash, I’ve been putting off the season’s final episode for a solid month now. The reason for that is simple: this episode looks like an absolute horror show, and I’m not exactly eager to see Spearhead’s remaining members get torn to pieces. The team has suffered enough, the unconscionable inhumanity of war has been made undeniably clear, and I’d be perfectly happy to let our heroes just ride off into the sunset.

I kid, but only to a certain extent. 86 is not a story that should conclude with a pat, happy resolution, because the conflicts it has articulated are too imposing and too substantive to be conveniently resolved. By positioning itself in the grand tradition of stories like All Quiet on the Western Front, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Catch-22, 86 has essentially guaranteed its conclusion will either be suitably tragic, or else embrace enough feel-good escapism to risk undercutting its core themes.

And that, more than anything else, is what I’m afraid of. Can you actually tell a substantive war story in a light novel context, where stories are designed for infinite sequential replication, and main characters are often treated more like brand ambassadors than human beings? The narrative variables 86 began with have largely been resolved, but this is only the show’s first of an unknown number of seasons, which to some extent gives me my answer. I’m thusly steeling myself for some awkward sequel hooks, but if this episode can tie a neat bow on the season’s drama, linking Lena and Shin’s experience one final time, I’ll be plenty satisfied. Let’s dive into the last episode of 86!

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Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 53

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. It’s been a couple solid months since we last visited the shores of Alola, and I’m currently still working off an awful cold, so I’d say we’ve more than earned a return to Sun & Moon. Though at this point, I doubt we’ll be seeing too many sun-dappled beaches or cloudless skies, given the crew just rode Solgaleo through a goddamn wormhole. The land of the Ultrabeasts awaits, and I’m expecting some impressive feats of pokebattle animation as our team seeks to rescue Lusamine. Just fighting one Ultrabeast seemed too much for our shamelessly stat-modded Pikachu – even with a legendary pokemon at their side, can our heroes truly battle them on their own turf? With the stakes higher than ever before, let’s return to the fantastical world of Sun & Moon!

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